New PT owner needs help with front brakes and maybe bearing replacement.

[Frankvs73]

Hi there all my name is frankie. Well i'm not really the new pt cruiser owner my gf is she bought a 2007 with about 36k miles on it about 2 months ago.

Well here our problem. My gf about a month ago apparently hit a curb going about maybe 15 or 20 (i'm not too sure she said she didn't know her speed) or more head on with her front passenger side wheel while making a turn. No physical damage was done according to her, so she didn't tell anyone.

Well now about a month later (today). I was driving around with my GF, my brother and my sister a full load of people in the car costume shopping. We stop at jack in the box and get our food i pull out but didn't notice how long the curb to my right was and while making a right turn into a gas station leaving the drive thru i curved the back rim going about 5-12mph. we get the the gas pump to check rim damage and none is visible.

Well now about 5minutes later we start to hear Really loud squeaking coming from the front passenger wheel when i have to brake hard (not super hard just fast really). My brother is a mechanic type of guy and knows a lot about cars. He thinks its just a worn brake pad or maybe the brakes are just heated up too much. The squeaking only happens when all four of us are in the car and i have to brake hard which in las Vegas tends to happen every now and then with people cutting me off, but when the car load is light the squeaking isn't heard.

Its night time now so i can't inspect it myself with my brother and we both work tomorrow. I was really just wondering as if it could just be a worn brake pad or worst case scenario a worn bearing since this seems to be big common problem on almost all PT cruisers.

Thank you for you time and reading my situation. Any help would be much appreciated.

[quicksilverdon]

Welcome.
In my opinion, bearing would make noise all the time, so sure sounds like brakes.
It could just be the "feeler" on the brake pad, it's designed to make noise when pad reaches a certain thickness.
If you have alloy wheels, you can look thru the wheel at the caliper and get an idea of whether the pads are worn - if you have the steel wheels and to see both inner & outer pads, you have to take off the wheel.

If the brakes are original, at 36,000 miles it's time....

[Pteazer]

I agree sounds more like brakes or it would be all the time.